Sources: 76ers center Joel Embiid suffers setback with right foot

[hpantazo]

Perhaps they are in denial, but the consensus amongst Philly fans seems to be that this is old/minor news.  There's no pain.  There is no reinjury.  There's no announcement yet of any surgery.  Just that it hasn't healed the way they want.  The timing of it is peculiar. 

They seem to think this has to do with DeAngelo Russell.  He cancelled his workout with Philly and it lead to wild speculation.   Russell has been widely believed to be Philly's target... but the Knicks are basically in "Russell or bust" mode since Mudiay is a poor fit for the triangle.  The speculation is that perhaps the Knicks have worked out a deal with the Lakers where the Lakers will take Russell ahead of Philly and send him to the Knicks... and since Philly has two franchise bigs already, they expect that Philly will be forced to take Mudiay and let Okafor fall.   They seem to be speculating that this news about Embiid is coming out to give the illusion that Philly is comfortable taking a big... and perhaps dissuade the Lakers from taking Russell for The Knicks.

Sounds cray... we'll see what happens.

They're definitely in denial. It's not good, particularly if it indicates he's a slow healer long term. I'd say this is a major red flag, whereas I think Embiid's weight and the walking boot incident from earlier were much ado about nothing.

But until we see what the outcome is the chicken littles are overreacting as well.

He didn't get hurt or experience any pain from what I understand. It was just something they noticed in a regular check up on it. Hard to say how serious it is without the particulars.

They certainly are in denial. If it's not healing properly then that could lead to yet another surgery where yet another screw is put in.

I don't even think the Sixers or most their fans are in denial, it's just LB33 and a few unreasonable Sixers fans.

Overall it's a terrible sign for a guy who hasn't played in over a year and still is not healthy and may not be able to play in summer league and training camp either. He hasn't played nearly as much basketball as most guys his age and his body is already breaking down. I don't see him holding up over 82 game seasons for very long imo.

[mahcus smaht]

This is pure speculation on my part, but an idea occurred to me which I hope has not already been brought up.

It looks more and more like BPA at 3 will be a big.

If philly takes a big, with 2 stud young bigs in hand then they all lose value in the trade market as philly more or less has to trade 1. Now we know they believe in upside and embiid has more upside than Noel or anyone in the 15 draft. Isn't it plausible that they are inventing this setback to increase leverage in trade talks surrounding pick #3 and Noel?

I think it's more likely that he suffered a set back, but this I think is an interesting possibility howe we unlikely

[Eja117]

If I were the Sixers I'd be pretty freaked out. This guy seems quick to injure and slow to heal. He hasn't played competitively since a year and a half ago now. He missed all last year and he missed half his freshman year. He couldn't get through his freshman year without a body that took more than a year to heal. That's horrifying to me. He seems on the way to breaking Oden's record.

[hpantazo]

If I were the Sixers I'd be pretty freaked out. This guy seems quick to injure and slow to heal. He hasn't played competitively since a year and a half ago now. He missed all last year and he missed half his freshman year. He couldn't get through his freshman year without a body that took more than a year to heal. That's horrifying to me. He seems on the way to breaking Oden's record.

In addition to the injuries, there were also the reports that he was too lazy to stick to his physical fitness program and was gaining a lot of weight, which I'm sure didn't help his fractured foot at all.

[Denis998]

I wouldn't dismiss Embiid as a slow healer. His foot injury, as well as other foot injuries are really slow to heal especially for big men. Not enough blood circulates in that area to facilitate fast healing.

[Rosco917]

The article reads "CT scan revealed an issue in the healing process" I'm guessing there's either another stress fracture or a recurrence of the same one. Either way, its a disaster for the 76ers. We won't see him this year, I'm sorry to say.

It would be interesting if they went for a center in the draft?

[LGC88]

If I were the Sixers I'd be pretty freaked out. This guy seems quick to injure and slow to heal. He hasn't played competitively since a year and a half ago now. He missed all last year and he missed half his freshman year. He couldn't get through his freshman year without a body that took more than a year to heal. That's horrifying to me. He seems on the way to breaking Oden's record.

In addition to the injuries, there were also the reports that he was too lazy to stick to his physical fitness program and was gaining a lot of weight, which I'm sure didn't help his fractured foot at all.

Reading this makes me think Sully at #21 was a steal.

[Boris Badenov]

Question: How many big guys have experienced something like this - missing 1-2 full seasons early on with foot/leg problems - and then come back to have an All-NBA career?

I mean we can all think of the bad outcomes - Oden, Walton, Bowie, and with later injuries Yao, Sampson, etc.

But how many success stories are there? Maybe I'm just having a mental block but I can't think of any.

[Who]

Question: How many big guys have experienced something like this - missing 1-2 full seasons early on with foot/leg problems - and then come back to have an All-NBA career?

I mean we can all think of the bad outcomes - Oden, Walton, Bowie, and with later injuries Yao, Sampson, etc.

But how many success stories are there? Maybe I'm just having a mental block but I can't think of any.

Edit: Sorry, missed the All-NBA part. Ilgauskas does not qualify.

Ilgauskas was one of them (to come back and have a successful career).

He had the same injury too. Fractured navicular bone in foot.

Only played 5 games in 1999. Missed all of 2000. Came back. Got injured again after 25 games. Came back. Played smaller minutes for a year (21mpg) while he worked his way back into shape (10ppg, 5rpg, 20mpg).

Then had the best years of his career after that. 16ppg, 8rpg, 2bpg in 31mpg over the next 4 years. Played in 2 All-Star games over that period.

Struggling to think of others.

[hpantazo]

Question: How many big guys have experienced something like this - missing 1-2 full seasons early on with foot/leg problems - and then come back to have an All-NBA career?

I mean we can all think of the bad outcomes - Oden, Walton, Bowie, and with later injuries Yao, Sampson, etc.

But how many success stories are there? Maybe I'm just having a mental block but I can't think of any.

None that I can think of. There are guys that had so-so careers afterwards, such as Ralph Sampson, Sam Bowie, Tracy McGrady, Zadrunas Ilguaskas, Penny Hardaway, etc.,  but none that became all-star level players after such injuries.

[jambr380]

Im interested to see what you guys LarBrd 33 thinks his trade value is now.

If Im Philly LarBrd33 this has to be very concerning

Some minor editing for Philly's #1 Celtics fan.

TP - This is awesome!

(and I am a huge fan of LarBrd)

[hwangjini_1]

If I were the Sixers I'd be pretty freaked out. This guy seems quick to injure and slow to heal. He hasn't played competitively since a year and a half ago now. He missed all last year and he missed half his freshman year. He couldn't get through his freshman year without a body that took more than a year to heal. That's horrifying to me. He seems on the way to breaking Oden's record.

In addition to the injuries, there were also the reports that he was too lazy to stick to his physical fitness program and was gaining a lot of weight, which I'm sure didn't help his fractured foot at all.

this is an old report, and not accurate. it was discussed here on cb some months ago. pix and reports seemed to say that this was not the case.

[hwangjini_1]

Question: How many big guys have experienced something like this - missing 1-2 full seasons early on with foot/leg problems - and then come back to have an All-NBA career?

I mean we can all think of the bad outcomes - Oden, Walton, Bowie, and with later injuries Yao, Sampson, etc.

But how many success stories are there? Maybe I'm just having a mental block but I can't think of any.

one off the top of my head is ilgauskus of cleveland fame.
never mind. WHO beat me to this. tp to WHO for being fast as lightening. 

[Boris Badenov]

Question: How many big guys have experienced something like this - missing 1-2 full seasons early on with foot/leg problems - and then come back to have an All-NBA career?

I mean we can all think of the bad outcomes - Oden, Walton, Bowie, and with later injuries Yao, Sampson, etc.

But how many success stories are there? Maybe I'm just having a mental block but I can't think of any.

Edit: Sorry, missed the All-NBA part. Ilgauskas does not qualify.

Ilgauskas was one of them (to come back and have a successful career).

He had the same injury too. Fractured navicular bone in foot.

Only played 5 games in 1999. Missed all of 2000. Came back. Got injured again after 25 games. Came back. Played smaller minutes for a year (21mpg) while he worked his way back into shape (10ppg, 5rpg, 20mpg).

Then had the best years of his career after that. 16ppg, 8rpg, 2bpg in 31mpg over the next 4 years. Played in 2 All-Star games over that period.

Struggling to think of others.

He's not a terrible example actually - he was a two-time All-Star and I think he might be as close to coming back at "full strength" as you could think of.

But given all the cases on the other side...it doesn't paint a very good picture does it? If the chances of making full recovery are on the order of 10%, this is a real concern.

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

If I were the Sixers I'd be pretty freaked out. This guy seems quick to injure and slow to heal. He hasn't played competitively since a year and a half ago now. He missed all last year and he missed half his freshman year. He couldn't get through his freshman year without a body that took more than a year to heal. That's horrifying to me. He seems on the way to breaking Oden's record.

In addition to the injuries, there were also the reports that he was too lazy to stick to his physical fitness program and was gaining a lot of weight, which I'm sure didn't help his fractured foot at all.

Ehhh, those issues were in like February? Don't think they really had anything to do with this. His brother died, he couldn't work out/play ball and he was pretty frustrated by it all.

He did what most people in their young 20s do and didn't handle it all that well.

The organization had similar frustrations w/ Noel, albeit not so much on the weight gain aspect obviously.

I think both sides are overreacting a bit here for a couple reasons:

Down players
1. It's been a year, any injury that takes a year to healing and has an issue with a healing process isn't good.
2. It's not a ruse, that's absurd and it doesn't make any sense.
3. He's definitely the best prospect Philly's had since the AIs.

Chicken littles
1. We don't actually know what the issue is yet, the same thing happened when he put a boot on and everybody flipped out over nothing
2. It's not like Hinkie put all of his eggs in this basket, he's got a top 3 pick this year and 4 more coming next year along with another big stashed overseas in Saric
3. There's no rush to get him back, if it costs him games early then it costs him games early. As long as it isn't a permanent thing(it might be, we don't know) then it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.